Before my very eyes, two men were slaughtered like cows

His story reads like fiction. But for Adewale, a high school IT teacher in the Alakuko area of Lagos, his escape from the den of ritual killers was and uncomfortable brush with death. Now back in the comfort of his home, he tells his horror story, albeit reluctantly, to Gboyega Alaka

Be warned, this is not a made up story. It is not one of those tales strewn together by fiction writers to satisfy the human thirst for weird stories and diabolism; yet it is one you’re almost going to dismiss with a wave of the hand as one of those far away stories. Even if you believe it, you’re most probably going to say a silent prayer and wish it away. For Adewale (not real name) however, it is no longer a far away story; but one as real as the skin on his neck.

For his personal safety, Adewale had demanded for maximum protection from this writer before settling down for this interview. The horror he beheld at the hand of his ritual kidnapper captors, he said, is the sort that still rattles him to the marrow; and he does not put it beyond them to come tracking and visiting deadly harm on him. After what he saw them do to fellow human beings during those long, endless hours in the forest, he just cannot put anything beyond them. It is for this reason that his face has been blurred (see image). The name of the school, where he works as a computer teacher, has also been deliberately obliterated to further shield him.

His story

It happened on November 6, 2016. I’m a computer teacher in a popular secondary school along the Abule Egba, Toll-gate, Sango-Ota axis and I am married with a child. On this particular day, I needed to quickly dash to Sango to buy a whiteboard for a client. I boarded a yellow bus from Alakuko for Sango. The bus was filled up and I was probably the last to get on it. As usual, the conductor was busy warning passengers to ‘enter with (their) change,’ for which I told him I had N200 note with me. He said ‘no problem’ and that when we get there, we would sort it out. Looking back, that response was loaded, but at the time, it meant little to me. The bus got to Toll-gate bus stop and nobody disembarked. As we approached Adalemo, one of the men suddenly brought out a gun. Immediately, my heart skipped and I said to myself, ‘This is one chance bus’. One of them, sitting right beside me, said ‘bring out everything on you.’ So we brought out our phones, the money I was to use to buy the board for my client and other valuables. They even confiscated my wallet and everything inside. As we speak, I don’t have any kind of identification or phone. Other passengers in the bus also complied. Our expectation was that they would drop us off somewhere; but the driver climbed the Sango Bridge and continued on the journey. So, we assumed that they were going over the bridge because Sango is a busy area and they wouldn’t want to risk us giving them away to the crowd. I thought they would drop us off one or two bus stops after, but to our dismay, the bus continued. At this point, one of us made an attempt to shout, but they warned him sternly and threatened to kill him if he as much as made a sound. They also extended the warning to every one of us in the bus, threatening to waste our lives, if we tried anything funny.

At this point, I said, this is serious. I began to pray fervently inside me for God to intervene. After a while, the bus veered into a forest and that was the last I remembered. Because I’m not familiar with that axis (we were now in Ogun State), I cannot tell the point at which we veered into the forest. I only regained my consciousness when we got to their destination, a thick forest, with a house, a lone one-storey building.

The bus screeched to a stop and we were herded out like sheep. It was then I discovered that we were only six passengers in the bus. Others were members of the gang; even the driver and the conductor. Then they tied our hands to the back; they also tied our legs and dumped us in a cage. They left us there for about two hours, and though they did not lock the cage, we could not escape, because we’d been tied. So all I could do was pray. I said within me “Oh God What is this? Why are you allowing this to happen to me? Please save me from these people.”Then they came back, ordered us to take off our clothes, went inside again and then four men and two women came back and scrapped our hair. Then they told us to sit down and went away for a few minutes.

Soon after, a rough looking guy with bushy hair came back, seized one of us, the elderly man among us, took him into the house, brought him back and right before our very eyes, slaughtered him like a cow. He also severed his head in the process. I was horrified and went numb with shock. By far, that was the most gruesome thing I’ve ever seen in my life. One of the two women among us screamed in horror. You know how it is with women; she could not bear the sight. Then the man, the executioner, looked at us and said “I brought him here, so you all can see the fate that awaits you.”

I asked myself, so this is the end for me? This is how I will end up in this life? As these thoughts were running through my mind, the men came over again, seized another man and took him into that house. I’m deliberately using the ‘that house’ because it seemed like whoever was to be slaughtered, had to be taken into the house, perhaps for certain ritual purposes. As they were taking the second guy, he shouted and struggled, because he had seen what they did to the first guy. But it amounted to nothing, as it was clear that there was no help in sight.

They brought him back a short while after, and like the first man, he was slaughtered. After each slaughtering, a woman would come, escorted by two guys, to carry the body and the head. Only God knows the kind of knife they were using, but it was so sharp that it was able to severe the head from the body almost seamlessly.

At this point, I gave up. Surely, this was the end, I thought. So I just started praying that “God, let me just reign with you in your kingdom.” I was also praying for mercy. I said “God just have mercy on me. I don’t want to suffer in this world and still continue the suffering in the hereafter.”

Indeed, I would have been the third person to be slaughtered. Meanwhile, the women who were both elderly, probably married, were just weeping and bemoaning their fate. We, the men, were mostly young, save for the elderly man that had been killed. My worst fear happened. I was seized like the two men and whisked towards ‘that house’, which I can now term ‘gate-way to death.’ Suddenly, the executioner stopped, came closer to me, looked me straight in the eyes with some kind of bitterness and untied my hands. At that moment, I was deeply scared. I even wondered if my own death would be different from that of the others. …And then he said (in Yoruba), pointing, “Take this way, run.”

Of course the import of what he said didn’t sink, so I didn’t move. I actually thought I didn’t hear right, because I couldn’t understand how he could suddenly change at the eleventh hour and tell me to go. I even thought he was going to shoot me from behind. He then made the statement again and said, “I said take this way, run.” At that point, I didn’t need any more prodding. I simply took to my heels. Even as I ran, I kept looking over my shoulders until I was sure I was out of sight. Still, I kept running. I ran in the forest for almost four hours. By the time I emerged to a main road, it was nearly dark. Meanwhile I boarded the bus around 11am. The first person I saw was a woman. I believe it was God that sent her to me. Initially she wanted to run. I wouldn’t blame her, because I was only in boxer’ shorts and looking really rough and dirty. In fact I can tell you that I was gone. I was not alive in the real sense of being alive. She must have thought that I was some mad fellow. But I summoned courage and told her in Yoruba to “Please wait”. When I thought she didn’t understand Yoruba, because she didn’t make any move, I repeated myself in English. Then she hesitated but still kept her distance. I told her nothing was wrong with me and that she should help me and cover me with clothes because anyone who saw me in that almost naked state would assume that I was some lunatic. There and then, she gave me the wrapper she was wearing to cover my body. Soon, people started gathering to hear my story. Most of them were agitated. They asked me to describe the place and I told them it was somewhere deep in the bush, but the truth is I couldn’t remember how I arrived the main road. It was later that I discovered that the place where I emerged was a town called Arigbajo; I think it’s not very far from Ifo.

Merely seeing me, some of the men already suspected my plight. Some went into the forest, but came back without success. I wasn’t surprised. To get there, they would have to spend more than a few minutes. The interesting part is that my story was not altogether strange to them. Some said they’d been hearing stories like that and earnestly wished they could somehow burst the evil gang and expose them.

As I speak, I don’t know the fate of the other three people I left behind, but I suspect they must have gone the way of the two men. I slept over in the woman’s house, but told her I needed to leave as early as possible the following day, to put my wife’s mind at rest, because I knew she would be anxious already.

The ritualists

When asked if he could describe the ritualists, especially those doing the slaughtering, Adewale said “As far as I’m concerned, I would not describe them as humans anymore. For people to be slaughtering fellow human beings like cows, then there is a big question mark on their humanity. And these were very young guys; and they did it with so much precision that you’ll know that they’d been at it for years. Merely looking at the guy (who slaughtered the men) was scary because he looked rugged. There were also women among them. One thing I noticed is that by the time they brought those two guys to slaughter, they had almost lost consciousness and offered little or no resistance. They just laid them down like goats and slaughtered them. It was as if they were hypnotised once they took them into that house. Their headless bodies however struggled, just like every normal living being would after going through such fate.

I believe it was because they didn’t take me into that house that I survived. If they had taken me into that house, it probably would have been the end for me. That house was like a gateway to death.

That House

The house people were being taken into before they were slaughtered was a small one-storey building in the middle of the forest. It was the only house visible in the thick forest and I actually wondered if the house was deliberately built for that purpose. It was unpainted, but plastered. I cannot describe the inside, thankfully, because I didn’t make it there.

Advised not to report to the police

Ironically, Adewale has not mentioned a word of the incident to the police, nearly three weeks after. Part of his reason, he said is his lack of trust for the Nigeria Police and the fact that the bus that picked him up loaded very close to the Police Station at Alakuko.

“Since I came back, I have not reported to the police because I know the Nigeria Police. The Alakuko bus stop, where the criminals were picking people is not far from Alakuko Police Station, yet they could not do anything.”

When reminded that the police couldn’t have known the intention of the bus operators and people in the bus, he still cited several other cases that have overtime eroded the people’s trust in the police.

He also cited his pastor’s advice to him to let go of the matter, since God had saved him. Even his mother, he said, warned him. “My mother vehemently warned me not to tell the story to anyone, be it the police or journalists. In fact, I am disobeying both my mother and my pastor by telling this story to you and I’ll like it to be on record that I specifically demanded that you protect my identity as much as possible, because those guys that I encountered are capable of anything. When I told my mother that a journalist was coming to take my story, she told me specifically that I’m doing it at my own risk. The only reason I agreed to give this interview therefore, is to warn people. People should be a bit more careful as they board buses, be it the yellow buses, be it private cars; especially on this Abule-Egba, Alakuko, SangoOta axis. Only God knows how many people would have fallen into their trap since that fateful day.

In truth, it is hard to identify most of these vehicles; but I think people should work with their instincts. If you have a hunch not to get on a bus, don’t. If you suspect right after you’ve boarded and are still in an area where you could salvage yourself, by all means, do so. If need be, scream, if the driver refuses to stop the vehicle.

The morning after

When I got home the following day, my wife initially attacked me, asking when I started going out like that, but when I told her my story, she was just rolling on the floor and thanking God for my life. My mum was also traumatised. She lives in Ikorodu, but the funny thing is that she had always begged me to move away from the Sango-Ota axis, because she once lost her sister to ritual killers around the vicinity. She was missing for days and when they eventually found her corpse; her breasts had been cut off. So she has never been comfortable with any of her relation living in this axis. So now, she has renewed her clamour on us to move over to Ikorodu. Because of this matter, she has also labelled me a stubborn child, because I told her not to worry.

His takeaway

People are saying the country is bad, things are hard, but we are the harbinger of our problems. Our level of sinfulness is beyond imagination. After what I saw that day, I just came to the conclusion that no sin could be greater than what those people were doing. All because of money.

The police, not aware -PPRO, Oyeyemi

When the Public Relations officer, Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Abimbola Oyeyemi was contacted on phone, he said he was not aware of any activity of kidnappers or ritualists in the said area and wondered if the victim actually made a report to the police.

He also wondered if the story is not one of those made up stories, insisting that the normal thing for anybody who manages to escape from such gory experience, is to go to the police and make a report.

Oyeyemi said this is mainly for the police to be aware, so that they could begin investigation into the matter and get to the roots of it. He said this is also pertinent, as the police would tighten security in such area and enlighten the public, so they don’t fall prey.

He insisted that the police cannot know of such activity, if a report is not made. He said if the person is sure, he should make a report.

It is time Nigeria invests in drone technology for surveillance purposes. This ritualist den could be scoped out and detected within days from the sky and paratroopers deployed deep into the night to round up these demonic people. The police cannot deny that this type of things happen and yet they treat it like any other crime. This story is not the first, and it would not be the last. Bloodshed, especially of the innocent, could bring a nation down.

Iskacountryman

yariba scientific achievements…

omoagbala60

Yes, you are right. This is mainly Yoruba issue and we cannot claim to be civilized if we continue to treat this social ill with kid’s gloves.These bastards should be outed and killed. Just like other insane crimes peculiar to other regions of the nation, the nation should don the toga of modernity and joined the rest of the world for the challenges of the 21st century.

Iskacountryman

yariba scientific achievements…

omoagbala60

This shows the level of barbarism among our people, in other climes, concerted efforts would have been mounted to apprehend these low-life animals and severe penalty like death attached as appropriate punishment. The problem is the Police are aware and could be culpable as long as they are paid. Things like these do not happen a vacuum; the residents of immediate vicinity are aware, but decide to mind their own business until the chicken comes home to roost in the yard.

The Vulture – King of Offals

Tales by moonlight – only an Ngbati man will render such!

I do not believe it!

Olumba2004

What a story. I pray God will continue to safe you my brother. That is Nigeria for you, when other people in other parts of the world are using their God given talents to invent things, Nigerians are busy killing each other for “money”. A nation full of churches but drenched in sin.

Opekete

The love of money is the root of all evils for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves with many sorrows. There is never any way one can make money this way and be happy. I also believe people doing this kind of dastard ritual sacrifice are politicians seeking power and influence. I believe nemesis will catch up with them some day. On the other hand, the police in Nigeria cannot be trusted because they are part of the larger society.

Emiko

It is only in the Western part of Nigeria you still hear all these type of stories because even though a lot of them profare christainity, they are still deep in all these occultic practice. People go missing every day in Lagos and most Western towns in Nigeria for Ritual purposes which is big shame. The ritualist and their fellow patroners will definately die painfully by teribble illness if not caught before their time In Jesus name… Amen!!!